The content of this blog will mainly contain articles related to my research interests.

Sunday, December 14, 2014

What happenned to Zaman and Samanyolu TV (A short list of events)

12/23/2013 Turkey's
flagship carrier Turkish Airlines (THY) stopped the distribution of
the Zaman, Today's Zaman, Bugün and Ortadoğu dailies to
business-class passengers on its planes on Monday without any
explanation, though other dailies are still being handed out
onboard.

1/6/2014 CHP Deputy
Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu submitted a question in Parliament on
Monday asking Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan why the
Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has canceled its
subscriptions to the Zaman and Bugün dailies.

2/7/2014 The
deportation of Today's Zaman journalist Mahir Zeynalov for Twitter messages that were
critical of the government is a setback for press
freedom, say international press organizations

3/2/2014 The Radio
and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has issued a warning over news
program “Derin Bakış” (Deep View), which is broadcast on
Samanyolu News TV, on the grounds that the program is
“biased,” only a week after it penalized Bugün TV for the same reason.

3/25/2014 The Supreme
Election Board (YSK) has issued a three-week broadcasting
suspension for Bugün TV's news program “Özgür İfade” (Free
Expression) and a four-week broadcasting suspension for
another program on the same TV channel, “Gündem Özel”
(Special Agenda), on the grounds that both have violated the
equality of opportunity among political parties.

3/27/2014 The Radio and
Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has suspended 15 more programs
of the Samanyolu Haber TV news channel, in addition to the
suspension of 20 programs in mid-March, Samanyolu
Broadcasting Group General Manager Hidayet Karaca said on
Wednesday.

4/4/2014 On Thursday
night Samanyolu Haber TV news channel was the latest to face a
cyber attack, as readers have at times also recently been
unable to access the websites of the dailies Zaman, Today's Zaman and
Taraf, as well as the Cihan news agency, particularly
since the night of the local elections on March 30.

5/28/2014 In Mardin,
Hizmet movement's two radio channels were banned because they are
allegedly a "threat to national security"

6/4/2014 The Supreme
Board of Radio and Television (RTÜK) has been harassing TV
networks that it deems to be anti-government, and Samanyolu TV has
become one of its major targets.

6/5/2014 A prosecutor
has filed charges against a director of Samanyolu TV accusing him of
“insulting” and “slandering” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan and fomenting “grudges and hostility among the
public,” demanding up to 11 years and two months in prison.

6/7/2014 Prime
Minister Erdogan claimed that if "the December 17th plot" were successful,
those who are not subscribed to Zaman daily will be purged from
their posts by Hizmet operations

6/12/2014 Construction
of Samanyolu Media Center building in Istanbul was halted without
any reason

7/1/2014 The ruling
AKP imposed a media accreditation ban on a number of outlets,
including Taraf, Sözcü, Yurt, Birgün, Evrensel, Yeni Asya and Aydınlık
dailies, as well as broadcasters Halk TV, Ulusal Kanal and Hayat
TV, preventing them from covering a ceremony to announce Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's candidacy for the
presidency on Tuesday.

7/10/2014 Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged people to boycott the Zaman media
group while speaking in a rally in the Black Sea city of Tokat on
Wednesday.

7/11/2014 The
government reportedly held a secret meeting at the Finance Ministry in June
to damage the credibility of 100,000 companies considered to be
linked to the Hizmet movement, which were already being profiled
by the government and refusing to obey the government's
ill-motivated instructions, the Taraf daily claimed.

7/11/2014 Minutes
before Friday's iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, The municipal
police of the AKP Üsküdar municipality forced a Samanyolu TV
(STV) crew out of the mosque's garden, where they were
shooting a Ramadan program, despite the crew having gained official
permission from the authorities.

7/14/2014 A member of
the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has
submitted a written parliamentary question demanding to know if
100,000 companies have been profiled by the National Police Department
on the grounds that they are close to the Hizmet movement.

7/16/2014 Main
opposition CHP Deputy Chairman Sezgin Tanrıkulu spoke in Parliament on
Wednesday about the cancellation of the award ceremony of a
short film contest after the competition was won by Seleme Gülen,
a relative of Turkish Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

7/21/2014 The Radio and
Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) fined Samanyolu TV on
Sunday for running a news story about a student named
Fethullah Gülen who prepared for the Transition to Higher
Education Examination (YGS) with the Hizmet-affiliated Körfez University
Preparation School in İzmir.

8/10/2014 A 35-year-old
man has been killed in Yalova province by a drug addict on the
grounds that the victim was a follower of the faith-based Hizmet movement,
against which the government of Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan has declared battle since last year, and because he
was a critic of Erdoğan.

8/22/2014 The Ministry
of Education has blocked access to samanyoluhaber.com,
a news website affiliated with the Hizmet movement, at
institutions and organizations that are linked to the ministry.

9/18/2014 Reporters
from the Zaman daily and the Cihan news agency were excluded from
European Union Affairs Minister and chief EU negotiator Volkan
Bozkır's press meeting in Brussels on Thursday

9/26/2014 Erdoğan’s men
attack 2 journalists from Zaman, Bugün in US

9/26/2014 The Radio and
Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) has fined the STV and Samanyolu
Haber television stations 1 percent of their advertising
revenues over their reports on a police officer who lost his wife and
the couple's unborn baby after being arrested as part of a
government-backed operation against members of the police force.

11/18/2014 Correspondents
from the Zaman and Bugun newspapers, the Samanyolu TV
station and Cihan news agency say they have been banned from the
presidential palace since Erdogan’s inauguration in August and no
longer receive official press releases

I have compiled media related facts from a wider report. Please read the full report from http://www.rethinkinstitute.org/persecution-hizmet-gulen-movement-turkey-chronicle/

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About Me

Ismail Mesut Sezgin is currently a PhD researcher at the Institute for Spirituality, Religion and Public Life in Leeds Beckett University. Having completed his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at Marmara University in Istanbul, Sezgin is now carrying out research on religion and society relations. His PhD thesis is titled "Theory of Moral Responsibility in the Writings of Fethullah Gülen". His research interests include Ethics, Islam, Sufism, Political Islam and Turkish Politics. He has delivered seminars and reflections on these issues at an international level.